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Xenakis Emulator
Xenakis Emulator is a media art project that combines digital audio and animated digital video as a free interpretation of two simultaneously created works of renowned modern composer Iannis Xenakis: His groundbreaking composition Metastassis and his work on the La Tourette Monastery in France in the office of seminal architect Le Corbusier. Both works are based on the concept of the glissando, interpreted within music and architecture. Iannis Xenakis was born in Romania in 1922. His family returned to Greece in 1932. He studied architecture and math and became a resistance fighter, fleeing from Greece to France in 1947, where he worked in the office of Le Corbusier. He was a student of Olivier Messiaen, and as first composer within New Music, he used mathematical probability in composition, becoming the inventor of stochastic music.Xenakis composed pieces for orchestra, scenic works for chorals, ballet music, and radio compositions. Working in the office of Le Corbusier, Xenakis collaborated on the monastery La Tourette from 1953-1955, developing the design and the placement of the vertical elements for the strip windows on the western façade of the building. The motif of “decreasing-increasing” of intervals of the vertical posts is derived from the composition “Metastassis”, on which Xenakis worked at the time as well. Metastassis for orchestra is defined by the extraordinary and debut implementation of glissandi within a composition. The glissando – the sliding movement within the tonal scale, for instance with a string instrument – is the defining motif of both the composition and the façade design for the monastery La Tourette. This connection is interpreted within an adaptation of both works. Measurement of the façade division results in definition of a system consisting of 48 intervals that comprise the increasing-decreasing appearance of the façade. These intervals can be interpreted as the 1st to 48th factor of a smallest common interval. Beyond that, minima and maxima can be identified, meaning points of largest and lowest density in the façade system, as well as the distances between them. The increase-decrease of the façade intervals is set equal to the increase-decrease of notes along the tonal scale. The largest distance equals the deepest note, the smallest equals the highest note. The length of the façade determines the length in time of the adaptation. For this purpose, the distances of the façade intervals are transcribed from millimeters into seconds and programmed accordingly. A sequencer program controls a synthesizer. For each of the four window strips of the façade, a particular patch or sound is chosen. The choice of different instruments for audio tracks, each representing a façade strip, enables auditory recognition of the different strips/tracks. In addition, a rhythm track is programmed that highlights the sound events of the four tracks and the temporal distance between them via a bass drum sound created by a drum machine. Also, the points of maximum and minimum density are accentuated with a hi-hat sound of the drum machine. The increase-decrease of the glissando is represented by a continuous sound, mixed as an additional track creating a background ambience, reflecting the combine motif of both of Xenakis’ works. It is programmed, recorded, and sampled separately and arranged as repetitive sample within the additional track. The façade strips of the monastery La Tourette with their characteristic pattern of divisions are the basis for the visual representation. The objective here is to connect visual image and audible sound. The animation displays the façade strips as abstract floating objects extracted from the context of the actual building. The animation is then combined with the adaptation music. A camera follows the façade strips in a parallel movement in such a manner that permits the simultaneous and synchronous transmission of the adaptation music. At the same time, a horizontal bar appears below the façade strips, featuring an image of the waveform of the adaptation music. A thin vertical bar indicates the synchronous movement of camera and adaptation music across the façade strips. (Mark Kammerbauer & Alexandra Schnellbögl 1999) Links Xenakis Emulator video